What is the Particular Judgment?
The New Testament speaks of a judgment as a final meeting with Christ in his second coming. But we also find in many places of the Sacred Scripture references to the retribution immediately after each one’s death as a consequence of one’s faith and deeds. Thus, we find the parable of the rich man and the poor Lazarus (cf. Lk 16:22ff), and the promise made by Christ to the good thief from the cross (cf. Lk 23:43) that he will immediately be with him in paradise. Other texts of the New Testament describe the last destiny of the soul (cf. Mt 16:26; 2 Cor 5:8; Phil 1:23; Heb 9:27; 12:23), which may be different for one or the other.
Thus, we know with the certainty of faith that each man, after dying, receives—in his immortal soul—his eternal retribution in a particular judgment. He immediately refers his life to Christ, going either through a period of purification, or directly to his definitive state in heaven, or to eternal condemnation.
This passage to the definitive state would not be possible without a previous judgment, where each person’s fate is clearly and summarily decided before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body.
Basically, the particular judgment consists in the communication of the divine sentence to the separated soul. Due to its spiritual nature, the soul understands it through a most simple and instantaneous act of the intellect.
It will be a verdict issued by God, not the result of a court litigation, and even less of a self-trial. We should not forget that pride resides in the soul, making it difficult for the separated soul to accept its own faults.
The particular judgment is rather an act by which God makes the soul see with all clarity. God communicates this vision to the soul, which cannot dispute it. By this act, the soul gets to understand in some way its state of either union with God or hideous sin. It is a light that comes from God and will lead either to the soul’s union with God—immediately or through purgatory—or to its definitive damnation.
We make it our aim, then, to please the Lord in all things and we put on the armor of God that we may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil and resist in the evil day. Since we know neither the day nor the hour, we should follow the advice of the Lord and watch constantly so that, when our earthly life is completed, we may merit to enter with him into the marriage feast and be numbered among the blessed and not, like the wicked and slothful servants, be ordered to depart into the eternal fire, into the outer darkness where “men will weep and gnash their teeth.” Lumen Gentium of the Second Vatican Council
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